VO Pro Tip: Avoid the End of Sentence Energy Drop

Published about 2 months ago • 1 min read

End of Sentence Energy Drop

Hey Reader,

When you listen back to a line you just recorded, how does the last word sound?

A really common habit in voiceover—for both beginners and experienced talent—is letting your vocal support trail off right at the end of a sentence or tag line.

Your brain naturally knows the thought is finishing, so as your breath runs low, your energy drops off. The sentence starts strong, grounded, and engaging, but the last word or two fizzles out into a weak exhale, a lower volume, or a muddled delivery.

Clients notice this immediately. It can make a commercial tag feel flat, an eLearning module sound tired, or a corporate read feel like you ran out of steam.

The fix isn't forcing a fake burst of energy or over-emphasizing the last word. That just sounds unnatural. Instead, try these two quick tweaks in the booth:

Keep your physical body engaged all the way through the final syllable. Don't start relaxing or dropping your posture until a second after you finish speaking.
Think of sentences as a continuous forward motion. Imagine you're passing a baton or landing a landed thought, carrying the physical breath support all the way past the final punctuation mark.

Next time you're reviewing a take, skip to the last word of every sentence. If the clarity or volume takes a dip, give it another pass with solid breath support right to the finish line.

-Michael

Check out all of the past VO Pro Tips here! VO PRO TIP ARCHIVE

Hope you find this useful! Feel free to reach out with any questions! And if you find these emails helpful - please share VoiceoverRoadmap.com among any VO groups your part of - Facebook, Reddit, etc... or just tell others about it!

Thanks so much!

Curious about my own personal VO Work?

www.MichaelLangsnerVO.com

Want to help support future content from VORM? Use our Amazon Affiliate link when shopping on Amazon by clicking the link below!

VORM Amazon Affiliate Link

Unsubscribe · Preferences

VO Pro Tip: Capture your First Read!

Capture that First Read! Hey Reader, This is a tip I need to start following more myself. If you're like me, you will often open up an audition and read the script or at least part of it out loud to yourself before stepping into the booth. So often, I find myself really liking the way that initial read or parts of it just naturally came out of me. But also often, I don't capture that into the mic! It’s a natural habit. We like to test out the phrasing, get comfortable with the pronunciation,...

6 days ago • 1 min read

VO Pro Tip: The 10 Minute Audition Cap

10 Minute Audition Cap Hey Reader, It’s easy to catch yourself spending twenty or thirty minutes on a single 30-second audition when it's for a really good project. You record a take, tweak the EQ, second-guess your pacing, re-record the opening line five times, and listen back on loop trying to decide if it’s "perfect." By the time you hit send, you’ve spent half an hour of creative energy on an audition that should have taken five minutes. Overthinking rarely leads to a better read. In...

13 days ago • 1 min read

VO Pro Tip: Visual Trick for Faster Editing

Faster Editing Visual Tricks Hey Reader, If you do long-form reads—e.g., audiobooks, eLearning, or corporate narration—editing out mistakes can eat up way more time than the actual recording session. (even on commercial reads!) Stopping your flow to hit undo or split a region every time you stumble breaks your momentum in the booth. Or alternatively, if you are recording everything before sitting down to edit, it can be overwhelming staring at a massively long waveform that includes the good...